The Vengeance Man (5 page)

"North" he called. "North." "Yes," I intoned, flatly. "North".

*
             
*
             
*

To our eternal shame, no thought of rescue crossed our minds. Survival was the only concern. I let in the clutch and drove carefully north, hiding in the eastern rim of the plateau, as the stains on the horizon faded slowly behind our
left
shoulders.

We kept liste
ning on the radio for the rest
of the day, but heard nothing.  Ra'ashid and the rest of Jamal's little band of Kurdish bandits were goners.

That kind of thing makes you think. Not about them. They were dead or dying by now.

It makes you realise how lucky you’ve been to get away with it.

CHAPTER
3

The Iran-Turkish Frontier

Thank God we made it to the hills that lead to the Turkish border.

That night, as we huddled in our sleeping bags round our fireless camp, the muted conversation turned inevitably to the debacle of our retreat. To my astonishment, Nusret told us that he had lost a brother in
Ra’ashid
's group.

"Why didn't you tell me before?" I asked. "Will you not go back?"

"Of course. Now it will be a matter of vengeance, a vendetta."

Yusif, standing sentry, a dark shape against the stars, growled his assent. I thought I understood the Kurds, but their capacity to surprise me was itself a constant source of surprise.

"But today," I probed, "Today did you not ... ?" I trailed off tactfully. No-one, least of all a Kurdish fighter, likes to be told he has run away and abandoned his brother.  Particularly by an infidel foreigner, and a white face at that.

Nusret grunted in the dark.  "What purpose would it have served?  It was as God wills. Now I must pay my family's debt, with blood."

Yusif growled again. I persisted, trying to pin down the thought processes behind the Kurd rhetoric.

"The will of God the merciful?  But was it not Jamal al Faud's desire for revenge that caused this? When he killed like a halaal butcher in the
maydaan
at Hasak? Had we not wasted time there, we may even now be with your brother, Nusret. Who knows?"

Nusret's face was impenetrable in the dark. "Who knows indeed, English? But I would not wish to be with my brother at this moment,
Sayeed
."   I remembered the jets and the smoke and the silent radio.

"True. But was it not Jamal's revenge that caused all this?"

"Jamal did right."  Yusif's interruption was abrupt.  "A man must spill blood when it is required for the honour of his family: revenge is his duty. Someone must punish the guilty. Is it not so written in the Holy Koran?"

"His revenge has cost us all dear, my friend."

"True; but duty is duty. Who else will act for us if a man will not act like a man to help his own kin?
This time  Nusret interrupted. He stood up to join his friend, the zip of his sleeping bag sounding harsh in the cold mountain desert night.

"I would not question Jamal's vengeance. He did what he had to, for the blood debt of his sister and his family. Who else could they look to for honour and to avenge them?", he asked rhetorically. "The Iran
ian
police
dog deserved to die. He had done great evil to Jamal’s sister. Is not the law that evil must be punished and seen to be, by all? Someone has to do what is right. There is no law in the mountains. Jamal was the law. And for  upholding the law I think he has paid a higher price than any of us here.  One day I will avenge Jamal as I will avenge my brother."

In the dim starlight , his eyes glittered and I realized he was weeping.
"Come my friend," I said, "Let me light a cooker and make us a hot drink. The
jaysh
will not see anything if we shield the flame."

We never spoke of it again.

*
             
*
             
*

It took us another four days to get across the Turkish border. Four days of survival rations. Four days of me getting sick with some stupid bug that no amount of bung up pills in the medical pack could stop. Four days of hiding behind rocks.  Four days of constant fear and tension.
We tried one night drive and bloody nearly killed ourselves, so we only drove by day; carefully. We discussed leaving the Rover and going across the mountains on foot, but the climbs and distances didn't add up. We'd never have made it without help, and we would never be able to carry weapons and ammo too.

Four days of fearful driving along rocky tracks, and of crossing fast flowing streams by fords or rickety bridges. Four days of  checking the GPS. All the time we scanned the sky, and at every corner and bridge we stopped to see if there was an Iranian Revolutio
n
ary Guard patrol up ahead. Although I calculated that the Iranians would think they had bagged the whole gang when the aircraft caught Ra'ashid on the plateau, we never really knew if there wasn't a check point or ambush round every bend.  The closer we got to the border, the sl
o
wer and more  nerve-wracking it became.

Once, high up, we saw con trails. Through the glasses I could just make out the glint of jet fighters; they were probably a patrol.  Reconnaissance planes, looking for us?  We redoubled our vigilance. No-one wanted to blunder into an Iranian border patrol so close to freedom.

Although we could avoid the villages easily enough,  wandering bloody tribesmen and villagers were another matter.   Even the tattiest village would have a telephone to Tehran or the local  fire brigade, I reckoned.   Goatherds were our biggest problem.  In the most barren cluster of rocks, miles from anywhere, you could run into a scruffy bundle of rags, tending a bunch of equally scruffy goats. We avoided them all, at whatever it cost in time.  Nusret shot one we met who saw us, just to be safe. He hadn't been more than a kid, snotty-nosed and begging for mercy. I know I’m supposed to be a cold hearted bastard, but I still didn’t like it. But it had to be done. We couldn’t risk him blabbing to his family. Even the dirtiest border village would have one phone. Being nice would have signed our death warrant. He had to go. From behind and in the back of the head, while he was still pleading with Yusif
– bang!  He would never have felt a thing. Still, we all felt ashamed.   Even now, although it had to be done, it's something better never dragged up out of the deep well of dark thoughts.  To this day the sound of that shot echoing around the hills still haunts me.  We hid his body under some rocks and drove on in an ashamed, grim silence, leaving the abandoned goats bleating on the hillside.

Apart from that, we saw nothing, except mile after mile of rocks and scrub and mountains. And every day my
dysente
r
y
got worse, and the pain in my stomach grew. The blood was running out of my arse so much by the last day that I had to shove a field dressing pad down my pants.  It was disgusting.

About noon on the fifth day, with dieso running low, the GPS said we were about seven miles inside Turkey. We'd seen some markers in the night, but weren't sure if it was the border. I pulled out the beacon radio and switched it to
auto transmit
. I cou
l
dn't risk too long a transmission. Iranian direction finders were sure to pick it up, and in these mountains who would ever know if an Iranian helicopter strayed a few klicks over the border for a clandestine smash and grab of three of the Ayatollah’s most wanted?

After about two minutes the set responded and Sal's twang, not forty miles away, bounced back from a satellite a hundred miles up, acknowledging my existence and telling me to switch on the SARBE. Tired, I bundled up the little collapsible satellite aerial, its spokes clawed out like a spider, and prepared to re-enter civilisation. Nusret and Yusif stared blankly at me, numbed by fatigue. We were all tired, hungry and, in my case, sick.

Half an hour later in a cold dawn a Turkish Army helicopter clattered overhead, homing in on the beacon. It landed alongside and Sal's saturnine Italian features leered out.

"Hi!  What kept you?  We'd kinda given you guys up for lost."  He eyed us up and down. “Tough trip, huh?  You look like shit. You should see your face pal.  Yellow's the fashion colour, huh?  Nice!   You OK?"

"And it's a pleasure to see you too, Sal, you fat
,
lazy rear echelon Yankee bastard....  I hope your bloody soft armchair has given you piles.  And in answer to your question, no, I'm not all right. I've got some kind of trots bug."

"No stamina,  you Limeys.   Didn't I tell you were full of shit?    C'mon, I'll give you a hand with your gear.  You got the…?"

I gestured to the ammunition box in the back of the Rover.  "It's all there."

Two Turk Gendarmerie dragged the priceless box of secret Iranian signals documents to the helicopter.  Twelve men died in the comcen at Hasak for that box, I thought as they struggled to lift the dead weight into the door.  I remembered the obscene purple of the Iranian officer's intestines bulging out his stomach by blast when we had burst into the comcen, but he was still alive and still screaming.  He'd still been fighting too.  He'd even tried to raise a pistol as I rolled in the door.  Either he was slow or I was fast, but I had blown his brains all over the walls and floor with a double tap of the Steyr.  Perhaps he really was a hero?
Well, he was a dead one now.

Silently we transferred my kit, the precious box of classified documents from the Hasak Comcen and my satellite radio to the helicopter cabin.   A dark, tough looking Turkish captain got out, spoke to Sal, who nodded, and then  the captain prepared to take my place in the Rover, scowling at the two Kurds. Nusret and Yusif stared back uncomprehendingly.

"What's the score?"  I asked. Sal pulled a face.

"You guys are kinda bad news at the moment. 
Persona non grata
, if you get my drift."  He gestured to the two Kurdish scouts. "Particularly
Mickey
and Minnie Mouse here.  TGS does not want to see their ass for a long time.   Captain Suleiman here will drive them to the border, pay them off, then blitz the Rover until it's a crisp.  We'll  send the taxi back for him. That way nobody points the finger at Ankara. The only reason they’ve gone along with using Kurds is because it keeps their noses nice and clean. You're out on a NATO flight tomorrow for Ramstein.  With a big paper bag over your head, if you get my meaning."

"No. No.  You've got to let these two run, Sal.  At least let me pay them off. "

On an impulse I pulled the heavy leather bag from my pouch and pressed it into Nusret's hand. "Some fruits I saved for hard times, Nusret," I said, winking at Yusif. "In English we say we save for a rainy day."    They stared at me, baffled.

Sal looked on, blankly.    The Turkish captain looked impatiently at his watch. I turned to him and tried English on him.

"You should know this, Captain Suleiman. Nusret and Yusif are as brothers to me. They are free men and have served both Turkey and my country well.  It was the wish of both our governments that they go free, with the Landrover and all its contents."  I repeated it in dialect for the benefit of the two Kurds.

The captain seemed doubtful. " I must check," he said in English, walking to the helicopter and its radio.

Sal shook his head. "They won't buy it.  You guys are about as popular as a fart in an elevator. They just want it all to go away. Even the Regional District commander
doesn’t
know you're here.  This is Ankara level stuff. Back off."

"Thank you, Ingleezi," said Yusif. He gestured at the Landrover and its dusty contents. Nusret was rummaging in the bag and suddenly looked up, eyes widening. "Ssh!" I put my finger to my lips and looked warningly at the captain's back.  Nusret shook his head slowly in wonder, then showed Yusif the bag with its five hundred gold sovereigns. Yusif's startled face looked up sharply. Sal sighed. "You're crazy.  How the hell are you gonna account for all this? Say you
lost
it?”  His voice rose. “They'll lock you in London Tower or something..."

The Captain came back.  "They can go, " he shrugged.  He seemed surprised.  To tell the truth, so was I.   "MoD Ankara  says their contract is ended.  TGS will deny their
existence
.  The Landrover does not belong to the Turkish government. It was illegally imported by Kurdish, terrori...  ah," He eyed the two cut throats in the Rover carefully, wondering if they could understand our English,  "Ah, Kurdish
dissidents
, and will be destroyed as contraban
d if it stays on Turkish soil.
Theoretically it belongs to
your
government. The British.  Do what you want.   But I would burn it: destroy the evidence.   These men can walk; but they cannot come with us."

Sal looked impressed. Whether at the diplomatic logic or the Captain's flawless English, I wasn't sure.  "Looks like a command decision for Her Britannic Majesty or whatever you call her.  Your call.  This is nothing, and I repeat, nothing to do with the Agency.  You understand? This is
not
a US matter. I am not even
here.
In fact, I'm in Washington today. I can prove it.  There are good American citizens back in DC prepared to swear that in court. On oath. In fact, I'd like to leave now, your Lordship, if that's not too much bother. "May we go now,?"  he pleaded mockingly.
"Please?"

I nodded and went over to the Rover. Nusret and Yusif stared at me.  "Take it, my friends.  Take it all. And go with God." They were wide-eyed at their luck. They had just inherited what was to them a fortune.

We said the emotional goodbyes of  men who have experienced danger together, and shared the life of the mountains.  It didn't take long:  what can you say?

As I climbed into the helicopter, Nusret called out, "God go with you, Ingleezi!"